Who is the happiest person in the world?
Maybe it’s Alejandro Zùñiga, a healthy middle-aged man who socializes for at least six hours a day and has a family and good friends to count on. He usually sleeps at least seven hours a night, walks to work, and eats six servings of fruits and vegetables most days.
He works no more than 40 hours a week and is happy with his job and his colleagues. Every week he dedicates a few hours to volunteering; on the weekends he prays to God and follows soccer, his passion. In short, this man makes daily choices that promote happiness, helped in this by the fact that he lives among like-minded people in the verdant and temperate Central Valley of Costa Rica. Zùñiga, like many Costa Ricans, tries to enjoy life every day in a country where stress is minimal and joy is abundant. Scientists identify Zùñiga’s form of happiness with what they call positive affect. Costa Rica is not only the happiest country in Latin America but also the one where people have the most positive emotions every day.
Alejandro Zùñiga, a vendor of agricultural products at the central market in Cartago, a city east of San José, the capital of Costa Rica. For decades, this robust 57-year-old man has been a fixture at the market, where he sells avocados and laughs and jokes with customers and colleagues. Everyone there knows him.
When one of the 60 or so market traders gets sick or has a family emergency, he is always the one to mobilize to help with a collection. On weekends, he organizes trips to follow the beloved but often unfortunate local soccer team, CSCartaginés. He is a charismatic friend and a born leader.
To understand Zùñiga’s resilience, you need to know a little more about Costa Rica, a country where an alchemy of geography and smart social policies has created a powerful combination of family ties, free health care, faith, peace, equality and – a quality Zùñiga possesses in abundance – generosity. It all translates into an ability to enjoy life day by day: the happiness linked to pleasures. In Costa Rica, these factors – which in statistics are always associated with well-being – create more happiness per dollar of GDP than anywhere else in the world.
Zùñiga doesn’t have a car, he doesn’t own jewelry or expensive clothes or electronic gadgets, and he doesn’t need them to feel happy or believe in himself. He lives in a country that for much of the last century has been concerned with supporting each of its inhabitants.
Unlike other Central American nations, which after independence were dominated by landowners and presidents backed by the military who served their interests. Costa Rica had a different history, the presence of high and rugged mountains and the lack of cheap indigenous labor prevented the formation of large
haciendas . On the contrary, the growth of the international coffee market created conditions of prosperity for small landowners and farmers in the Central Valley. Costa Ricans elected university professors as presidents who, free from the burden of colonial institutions, initiated national policies that increased the level of well-being of the country.
As early as 1869, compulsory schooling was established in Costa Rica for all, including girls. In 1930, the literacy rate was among the highest in Latin America, at the same time the State made significant investments to provide clean water to rural villages and ensure healthy growth for children.
In the 1940s, the social security system was introduced and the army was abolished. In 1961, national health care was introduced, leading to the establishment of free medical clinics in most rural villages.
The State’s commitment to its citizens continues today.
Since 1970, life expectancy in Costa Rica has increased from 66 to 80 years, while the infant mortality rate has dropped by 7 points. The percentage of male deaths from cardiovascular disease is about a third lower than in the United States, even though in Costa Rica per capita health spending is one tenth of that in the United States.
The EBAIS program, the National Health System, works so well because its primary objective is to keep the population healthy. Here, for years, the priority has been prevention because the objective of a good health policy is to ensure that people do not get sick.
In short, Costa Rica’s social system is geared to the needs of the majority of the population. People feel safe, the state provides for their health and basic needs, and creates an environment where most people can still earn a living.
From National Geographic, November ’17.
